Vegetarian Split Pea Soup with Kale, Carrots and Curry

I’ve been having a really awesome and productive stay down in Tennessee. And in order to not jinx that, I’m going to keep this post brief and just talk about vegetarian split pea soup.

At the beginning of every year I try to do a little pantry de-hoarding. I’m historically a lot better at this in the kitchen than in my bathroom, if this is any indication. But when I was taking stock of my jars in January, I realized that my split peas had been sitting on the shelf ever since I first moved into my apartment…3 years ago. If the time stamp wasn’t disconcerting enough, I picked up the bottle and noticed that the peas had developed a nice suntan, causing the front half of the jar to become a yellow ombre.

As any chronic hoarder will tell you, I hate being wasteful! So before doing what most good housekeepers would do, I took to instagram to make sure that I absolutely had to throw the peas out. My friends were horrified. But my fellow chefs told me to grab a ham hock and get cooking.

The pork sausages in my freezer had not fared as well as the peas, believe it or not, so as I disposed of them, I began getting to work on an easy vegetarian split pea soup with Indian spices. After a little longer soaking and simmering than usual, the pea soup ended up being perfect. And the depression era penny pincher in me (i.e. my Jewish half) was so thrilled that I had four meals for the week when there could have been none.

To brighten up these old musty peas, I topped the soup with some carrots and kale sauteed in coconut oil (I like this brand). The whole thing would make a great addition to your Farmer’s Market Challenge menu, and a very good meatless lunch for the week ahead.

I hope you’re all having a great month of healthy eating and cooking. If you’ve taken on any of the Gut Guilt experiments, let me know how they’re going below in the comments!

Instructions

In a large Dutch oven or stock pot, heat 1 tablespoon of oil. Sauté the carrot over medium-high heat until soft, 5 minutes. Add the kale and stir-fry until wilted, 3 minutes. Remove the veggies to a bowl and set aside.

Add the remaining oil to the pot. Sauté the onion until translucent, 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic, curry powder, and salt. Cook one minute more.

Stir in the green peas and cover with the water or stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the peas are soft, about 30 to 45 minutes.

Puree the soup with an immersion or stand blender until semi-smooth. Add the lemon juice and taste for seasoning, adding more salt as necessary.

Ladle into bowls and top with the carrot-kale mixture. Drizzle with olive oil and serve immediately.

If you make this, tag @phoebelapine and #feedmephoebe - I'd love to see it!

Reader Interactions

Comments

This looks delish. I was thinking, if you added some grains to the peas/legumes, you’d have some protein. Like, masa harina dumplings? Or quinoa flakes (which I use to thicken soups a lot). This recipe will be fun to play with!

This is a perfect vegan pea soup recipe! The curry does a phenomenal job at replacing the ham in traditional pea soup! I actually read your recipe wrong and I put the kale/carrot combo back in the peas after about a half hour of cooking (the peas definitely took more than half an hour…more like 1-1.5). Blending the kale in the soup is a really good way to “hide” kale from people who think kale by itself tastes like dirt (aka me), so this was an awesome recipe to get me to eat kale. And it was delicious. I also added more curry because first taste test seemed like there wasn’t enough flavor. Really really good though, thanks so much!

yay claire! this is such awesome feedback! very good to know about the cook time on the peas. Mine were super old, so I think I reduced the time estimate for the recipe, assuming mine had taken longer than usual to rehydrate/soften. I will definitely have to make this again and puree the kale into it!! xo

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I’m Phoebe: gluten-free chef, culinary instructor, Hashimoto’s advocate, & author. I’m obsessed with the sweet spot where health and hedonism intersect, in the kitchen and beyond. And I want to help you find it too. READ MORE ABOUT PHOEBE